Lol totally personal opinion. though I am slightly miffed that he marred the beauty of mono-red by splashy in filthy blue. Call me what you want but some colors just shouldnt mix. It's unnatrual and an abomination.
Imho you should just sell off the top of the pile and leave yourself the budget cards. Even maybe turn 1 or 2 itemss worth of tix into junk rares you can play with. NO need to leave even though as Blau pointed out the transition to budgeted content may be more of a hardship for you. Given the elite list of friends you have I suspect you will be able to outfit most decks if you need to borrow cards here and there. Stick around and continue to put out your articles. :)
If you mean the library I doubt very much its in real time as some of its listings are months if not years old. In fact while it can be useful to get an idea of what is doing what it is generally unreliable.
Both of the Andersons made top 8 in November 2009 with Eldrazi ramp decks? You mean elfdrazi. Rise of the eldrazi wasn't even out yet. It was an elf aggro deck with eldrazi monument.
Actually the biggest problem is that once the opponent understands what going on, he immediately wants to kill the architect(s). Portal is too slow without him. But that's the whole reason why I have 4x Stoic Rebuttals and 4x Turn Asides in the maindeck.
And in case they target your Portal, you can always use those cards to defend it.
I already had a horrible day at work and then I come home to relax and see this :(. I just don't know what to say. You will be missed. At least you're not quitting, so hopefully we'll see each other online.
I think it will also be a nice test to see how long you can stick to the budget play concept. Being a higher powered player like yourself will not make for an easy transition.
Oh and did you include me in the list of people who are NOT jerks? I think you made a typo. HAHAHAHAHAHA
Sorry to hear about the money issues. A few months back I also had to sell off my whole collection as well. What a crappy feeling after working so hard on the building it. But you will bounce back. We all do it just takes time. It took me a little while but now have a job again and am working on rebuilding my collection.
I only see 4 mana in the screenshot you're referring to, so it's 2 to drop pinions, 2 to equip and then he wouldn't have mana left to pay for the ferrovore's ability (which requires R AND sac for each artifact).
I like the builds of some of the decks posted, but I would suggest trying out Voltaic Keys when using Ratchet Bombs, Contagion Clasps and Lux Cannons as the accel for those cards is instrumental in their application.
@gains: at this point my collection is already gone, I've sold it off to mtgotraders who offered me a good price for the whole lot.
@shard, thanks man, I know my decks were always heavily costed, but I always felt there needed to be casual deck ideas for those with a bigger budget
However, even though my collection is gone this is almost like the rebirth of a phoenix, rising from the ash lol you'll understand in my next article, I've got a really cool idea I'm working on, which will hold appeal to those on the side of budget magic, you'll still see articles from me, but now I have to be joe everyman and play on a budget, should be a fun challenge to see what I can come up with having never been forced to actually play on little money.
Wow, loads of fun decks. I like the U/B deck, and the mono black poison (although from experience I think Putrefax is worth moving mountains, or at least forests to include), but the Mindslaver deck really appeals to the control freak in me.
Although what happens in game two when they side in their artifact removal (or more likely, they'll already have it maindecked) and destroy your prototype portal?
Erik, I think you have to beware not allow your personal love for Koth and red decks to cloud your judgment on the prices. I know others, and you, may disagree, but I think AJ raised a very good objection to the position that you should pick up Koths now. The red decks haven't been doing all that much. Yeah a couple of decks won here and there at Nationals, but overall they haven't been performing as well as other decks, which means they are tier 1.5 at best. Koth's value has been steadily dropping. At one point he briefly hit 40 tickets and now he's around 24. It seems to me that unless you really want to play red, people can hold off on Koth. So hard to tell when it's all speculation. I definitely think Koth's overall power level is at or just below Elspeth 1, and what will make or break him is finding that break out deck that pushes it to tier 1, where it's able to win just as consistently as Ramp or UW Control.
That said, it's nice to see Extended getting a little love. Now is a great time (imho) to start picking up some cards like Maelstrom Pulse (now dropping under $5), Noble Hierarch (under 4), Knight of the Reliquary (under 3), etc. They're cheap, the format is great and you can play competitively or casually.
Lastly, I'm pretty sure Maze of Ith has already been confirmed (at ClassicQuarter in an article/interview by Danger) to be released in MED4.
Liked these economics articles. However, I don't know if you just didn't want to advertise it (so I'm not going to use any commercial name here), but the main (I think) BOT programs company has a website where you can see in real time what all their BOTs are buying and selling and at what price. So you just need to type the name of the cards you want (and the specific set and/or regular/foil type, if you want), and 5 seconds later you will know what BOT offer higher, and how many of that card it wants, or in inverse, where to buy it at the best price. Some of the BOTS are not online every time, or the prices are just expired before the next update, but usually it takes just a couple of tries to find the operating BOT spotting the price you like best. Or, like I always do, you can just select from the list one of the BOTs you already know are always on and reliable, but knowing for sure that they do want that card you are selling, and that they pay high for it.
I'm saying so because your scenario involving a try to all 200+ BOTs on the classified page seems just crazy to me. I don't even think I will manage to connect to more than 20 or 30 of them within one hour - what if they are busy or the connection is slow, or the awful interface is failing? Just plain crazy to me.
I feel the time factor need to be stressed more here. Because time = money is a primary truth in economics, isn't? I have to bring one more example in the debate about the possibility an apparent "unfair" trade is actually perfectly happy for everyone. Let's say I have 1,000 crap rare cards worth 0.1 tix each. They still amount to 100 tix, right? But to actually transform them into 100 tix, I need to find 100 different guys who are interested in giving me 1 tix for taking 10 cards of this collection. How many weeks will I need to find these 100 guys? Or months? Or even one full year, given that after a while, the chances to find a guy who will find 10 cards of his interest among these are drastically decreasing, as far as this collection become (hopefully) smaller and smaller. Now, let's just imagine I find someone right now who's offering me 20 tix for all the crap. Wow, I would be losing 4/5 of the value of my cards! Or not? Well, actually not. I will be GAINING 20 tix out of a bunch of cards I will NEVER be willing to spend one full year of stupid trade time to get rid of. (Probably, the buyer is a BOT whose business is exactly to sell crap cards like these one at a time over the longest period). So everybody wins, but I win more, because I transform 0 tix into 20 tix, as otherwise these cards will remain in my collection pretty much forever. Even with the chances one or two of these will rise in time to a value of 2-3 tix (like, for instance, Pyromancer Ascension did), I'm still over it with my 1/5 value outsell.
This is maybe extreme (so it's the ratio, since a 0,1 card is possibly bulk-sold at 0,04), but I think you got the point.
less fresh/better taste
less fresh/equal taste
less fresh/worse taste
more fresh/same taste
... ect
I wanted to make the case that the donuts were equal, but looking back I didn't elaborate on that point. (On MTGO all cards are equally "fresh/delicious")
Dave,
I wish you the best of luck in whatever you are going through right now. You're articles have always been top-notch and I will miss them(even if I won't miss the pricetags). I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say I'll miss having you around, but there is always a spot for you at an of the PRE's and here on Pure.
-Shard
Lol totally personal opinion. though I am slightly miffed that he marred the beauty of mono-red by splashy in filthy blue. Call me what you want but some colors just shouldnt mix. It's unnatrual and an abomination.
RED POWER!
Or rather Hearsay :) It's only a rumor until someone proves it.
Imho you should just sell off the top of the pile and leave yourself the budget cards. Even maybe turn 1 or 2 itemss worth of tix into junk rares you can play with. NO need to leave even though as Blau pointed out the transition to budgeted content may be more of a hardship for you. Given the elite list of friends you have I suspect you will be able to outfit most decks if you need to borrow cards here and there. Stick around and continue to put out your articles. :)
You'll be back in full force in a couple of months, I'm guessing. It does suck to start all over though. Bills are no fun. But your article was!
If you mean the library I doubt very much its in real time as some of its listings are months if not years old. In fact while it can be useful to get an idea of what is doing what it is generally unreliable.
Is this justa personal opinion of are you going by some statistical data.
Both of the Andersons made top 8 in November 2009 with Eldrazi ramp decks? You mean elfdrazi. Rise of the eldrazi wasn't even out yet. It was an elf aggro deck with eldrazi monument.
This sentance did not make sence..."and ‘MED 4 updates will be in the November 20 announcement’ is restricted in Commander"
Actually the biggest problem is that once the opponent understands what going on, he immediately wants to kill the architect(s). Portal is too slow without him. But that's the whole reason why I have 4x Stoic Rebuttals and 4x Turn Asides in the maindeck.
And in case they target your Portal, you can always use those cards to defend it.
LE
I already had a horrible day at work and then I come home to relax and see this :(. I just don't know what to say. You will be missed. At least you're not quitting, so hopefully we'll see each other online.
LE
I think it will also be a nice test to see how long you can stick to the budget play concept. Being a higher powered player like yourself will not make for an easy transition.
Oh and did you include me in the list of people who are NOT jerks? I think you made a typo. HAHAHAHAHAHA
:-)
Sorry to hear about the money issues. A few months back I also had to sell off my whole collection as well. What a crappy feeling after working so hard on the building it. But you will bounce back. We all do it just takes time. It took me a little while but now have a job again and am working on rebuilding my collection.
The decks here are for SOM block constructed so Voltaic Keys won't be legal in the format.
yeah :\
I only see 4 mana in the screenshot you're referring to, so it's 2 to drop pinions, 2 to equip and then he wouldn't have mana left to pay for the ferrovore's ability (which requires R AND sac for each artifact).
r1g3 you should've won the turn of the snapshot by dropping pinions, attaching to ferrovore, then saccing it to ferrovore after blockers.
I like the builds of some of the decks posted, but I would suggest trying out Voltaic Keys when using Ratchet Bombs, Contagion Clasps and Lux Cannons as the accel for those cards is instrumental in their application.
Thanks for the comments guys.
@gains: at this point my collection is already gone, I've sold it off to mtgotraders who offered me a good price for the whole lot.
@shard, thanks man, I know my decks were always heavily costed, but I always felt there needed to be casual deck ideas for those with a bigger budget
However, even though my collection is gone this is almost like the rebirth of a phoenix, rising from the ash lol you'll understand in my next article, I've got a really cool idea I'm working on, which will hold appeal to those on the side of budget magic, you'll still see articles from me, but now I have to be joe everyman and play on a budget, should be a fun challenge to see what I can come up with having never been forced to actually play on little money.
The soliton + arbalest combo is also not too hard to assembly and is quite wicked. It's game over unless they deal with that pretty much immediately.
Wow, loads of fun decks. I like the U/B deck, and the mono black poison (although from experience I think Putrefax is worth moving mountains, or at least forests to include), but the Mindslaver deck really appeals to the control freak in me.
Although what happens in game two when they side in their artifact removal (or more likely, they'll already have it maindecked) and destroy your prototype portal?
Erik, I think you have to beware not allow your personal love for Koth and red decks to cloud your judgment on the prices. I know others, and you, may disagree, but I think AJ raised a very good objection to the position that you should pick up Koths now. The red decks haven't been doing all that much. Yeah a couple of decks won here and there at Nationals, but overall they haven't been performing as well as other decks, which means they are tier 1.5 at best. Koth's value has been steadily dropping. At one point he briefly hit 40 tickets and now he's around 24. It seems to me that unless you really want to play red, people can hold off on Koth. So hard to tell when it's all speculation. I definitely think Koth's overall power level is at or just below Elspeth 1, and what will make or break him is finding that break out deck that pushes it to tier 1, where it's able to win just as consistently as Ramp or UW Control.
That said, it's nice to see Extended getting a little love. Now is a great time (imho) to start picking up some cards like Maelstrom Pulse (now dropping under $5), Noble Hierarch (under 4), Knight of the Reliquary (under 3), etc. They're cheap, the format is great and you can play competitively or casually.
Lastly, I'm pretty sure Maze of Ith has already been confirmed (at ClassicQuarter in an article/interview by Danger) to be released in MED4.
Liked these economics articles. However, I don't know if you just didn't want to advertise it (so I'm not going to use any commercial name here), but the main (I think) BOT programs company has a website where you can see in real time what all their BOTs are buying and selling and at what price. So you just need to type the name of the cards you want (and the specific set and/or regular/foil type, if you want), and 5 seconds later you will know what BOT offer higher, and how many of that card it wants, or in inverse, where to buy it at the best price. Some of the BOTS are not online every time, or the prices are just expired before the next update, but usually it takes just a couple of tries to find the operating BOT spotting the price you like best. Or, like I always do, you can just select from the list one of the BOTs you already know are always on and reliable, but knowing for sure that they do want that card you are selling, and that they pay high for it.
I'm saying so because your scenario involving a try to all 200+ BOTs on the classified page seems just crazy to me. I don't even think I will manage to connect to more than 20 or 30 of them within one hour - what if they are busy or the connection is slow, or the awful interface is failing? Just plain crazy to me.
I feel the time factor need to be stressed more here. Because time = money is a primary truth in economics, isn't? I have to bring one more example in the debate about the possibility an apparent "unfair" trade is actually perfectly happy for everyone. Let's say I have 1,000 crap rare cards worth 0.1 tix each. They still amount to 100 tix, right? But to actually transform them into 100 tix, I need to find 100 different guys who are interested in giving me 1 tix for taking 10 cards of this collection. How many weeks will I need to find these 100 guys? Or months? Or even one full year, given that after a while, the chances to find a guy who will find 10 cards of his interest among these are drastically decreasing, as far as this collection become (hopefully) smaller and smaller. Now, let's just imagine I find someone right now who's offering me 20 tix for all the crap. Wow, I would be losing 4/5 of the value of my cards! Or not? Well, actually not. I will be GAINING 20 tix out of a bunch of cards I will NEVER be willing to spend one full year of stupid trade time to get rid of. (Probably, the buyer is a BOT whose business is exactly to sell crap cards like these one at a time over the longest period). So everybody wins, but I win more, because I transform 0 tix into 20 tix, as otherwise these cards will remain in my collection pretty much forever. Even with the chances one or two of these will rise in time to a value of 2-3 tix (like, for instance, Pyromancer Ascension did), I'm still over it with my 1/5 value outsell.
This is maybe extreme (so it's the ratio, since a 0,1 card is possibly bulk-sold at 0,04), but I think you got the point.
Excellent read. Looking forward to part 2! (CTRL + Q + E)
Great points.
Assume each scenario:
less fresh/better taste
less fresh/equal taste
less fresh/worse taste
more fresh/same taste
... ect
I wanted to make the case that the donuts were equal, but looking back I didn't elaborate on that point. (On MTGO all cards are equally "fresh/delicious")
Dave,
I wish you the best of luck in whatever you are going through right now. You're articles have always been top-notch and I will miss them(even if I won't miss the pricetags). I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say I'll miss having you around, but there is always a spot for you at an of the PRE's and here on Pure.
-Shard